You couldn't make this up, and to think that these guys are involved with finance but with no obvious sense of any form of competence.
A few years ago a friend of mine took out a BHS store card under the impression that it was - well - a store card. It was not. it was a Barclaycard - a credit card - a Mastercard.
Luckily she managed to pay her account off each month and so didn't get into any excessive charging. However the time came for this to be renewed at the end of this September. So Barclays sent her a new one - but without the pin. Actually Barclays simply sent it to her in an unsealed envelope, and NOT even by recorded delivery. Nothing like a lapse in security when handling customers accounts eh Barclays?!! Apparently this is standard practice. Good job the Royal Mail staff are honest - er - they all are aren't they? (Yet over 1 million items of mail are lost every year.). I digress.
Anyway at the same time her previous card which still had three weeks to go - was cancelled. The new one strangely had a start date of Aug
2011 and an expiry date of Sept 2011.So wanting to purchase some clothes in BHS for her daughter she tried to use her previous card to pay for them (BHS store card holders get a
33% discount) yet she was told that it been cancelled. So she then tried to use the new card but was told that she couldn't because she hadn't yet received the pin. Doh!!She complained to BHS who basically said "not our problem, you'll have to contact Barclay's Bank." But when she called at her local Barclays branch they said that there was nothing that they could do and that the pin was probably still in the post. But they said that they might be able to initiate the issue of a new card (no. 3) that would expire in the normal three years.
Anyway the pin for the second card arrived OK. So she then went back to BHS to buy the items for her daughter. No way said BHS - that card has been cancelled. A new one is being issued. Doh!!!
By this time she's getting pi$$ed off. However the sales staff let her have the items she wanted if she paid by cash; and (unofficially) they would let her have the BHS store card-holder's 33% discount. She thought that was OK.
Then about two weeks later - at the beginning of October (note that date) - the third card arrived. Brand new. A Barclaycard. A Master card. A branded BHS store card. All good? Well no actually. The start date was Sept 2011 and the expiry date was - you've guessed it - Sept
2011. This was received from Barclays again unsealed and unregistered in the first week of October!! It had already expired.By this time she was really pi$$ed off. So she went into BHS and told them they could stuff their store card. Then she went to Barclays and told them the same. She was requested to cut the cards up. However she refused and said that she was going to photograph them and upload them to a website.
The mind boggles. Not surprisingly there are reports that Barclays have the highest number of complaints about their banking and customer services. I personally got shot of Barclays year's ago. And I don't and wont do store cards, and certainly not with BHS or Mastercard. I've told her to ditch BHS, Barclays, and Mastercard. She's going to.
CJB.